Hi, my name is Stephanie, and I thought I would try a meal prep week from the
Healthy Meal Prep book from Fit Couple Cooks. So, I got this for Christmas, was super excited because
my family on both sides know just how much I've been enjoying meal prep and so I got a lot of stuff to do with that.
And it included this lovely book. Now, I just came back from going to the store for this,
so, I'm just kind of in a mood. So, if I seem a little bit different, that is why.
I'm about to show you all of the things I got. Now, what's really cool about their book is that they do this little
meal plan thingamajig. And they suggest you ... kind how you could do a week, or actually, six days, of meal
prep and they have it all laid out for how you're gonna do it. So, I'm gonna try it. I wanted to try to
do this as authentically as they did. This week that I'm going to be trying is the "Cut the Carbs" ... week
plan thingamajig. Now, honestly, I don't care about cutting carbs. I am just going based on a calorie
deficit. But ... I don't know, it's the first one in the list. So, I decided to go ahead and try it.
What's really cool is in the back here, they have these shopping lists, so what I decided to try to do
was go to the store with the shopping list. So, I'm going to go down the shopping list, and show you what I got.
And I'm gonna really hate myself later because I'm also going to try to show you the price if I can find it on the
receipt for each of these items. And ... yeah. So, here is the beginning. Our haul. Now, Stephanie and Adam of
Fit Couple Cooks like to have fresh garlic and mince it there, but that is one of those things that I just don't,
I don't have the patience for. So, on these lists, I did try my best to just go with what we're supposed to go with.
But ... yeah. The first item was 14 garlic cloves or two heads of garlic, basically. So, I just got this minced garlic
because I don't have enough time on my hands, nor patience, and I'm already super stressed out from shopping
and the fact that I'm going to be making a bunch of meals. So, we're just gonna let that go.
Then we have two medium onions. Obviously, we have more than two here, but, you know.
One red bell pepper. Got this from Aldi. It's in a set. So, you know, whatever. Four medium zucchini squash.
These are kind of a little on the smaller side ... except for, like, this giant one. But I was really, really, tempted to
get these ... zoodles that were already zoodles, ... but I didn't because they were super expensive compared to
just getting the four zucchini, so I did that. One head of cauliflower, found exclusively at Wal-Mart.
Not, I mean like, not in general. Just between Aldi and Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart had it. So. Now, this next part called
for 4 cups of baby arugula and 4 cups of baby spinach. So, I just got this baby spinach and arugula mix.
And I figure the funky-looking leaves are the arugula and the normal ones are spinach, so I'll just divide them out.
And, I mean, probably is like 4 cups each, I have no idea. I got these from Aldi. Now, this is probably one of the
most frustrating parts for me, and they wanted two whole cups of basil leaves. Like, packed in the cups. And
... if you aren't aware, basil is expensive. At least from where I am. I'm from Oklahoma and for one little thing
of course, it's ... organic basil leaves, or whatever. It's this little thing of leaves, like little thing. That
is not even near a cup, at all. Not in your wildest dreams. Is like, two bucks. And they only had one of those. So, I
I ended up getting this. And this. It's not two cups, at all. It's one cup. But I was hoping that it would pass
because it's, like, a paste of it. So. Two large lemons. ... I mean, they're lemons. I don't really know how to tell if
they're, like, large lemons versus normal lemons. Got those from Wal-Mart. This next item is a pound of
ground beef. It didn't really say what kind of ground beef or it could have been bison. But I'm not that fancy.
And ... this one's 85% lean, 15% fat, so, I don't know. I just grabbed a roll of it from Aldi. Now, this next one is
1 1/4lb of chicken. I got a lot more than that, but that's kind of just how it works, especially at Wal-Mart
if you don't want to pay a ridiculous price for chicken breast. 1 1/2 lbs of raw shrimp. Medium. So, these
were a little more expensive because they are peeled and deveined and raw, which, apparently, is not the
easiest combination to find, at least at Aldi, but I found them. I did pay, I think, a dollar, at least, more per
package than the other ones, but if it saves me from having to peel and devein shrimp, I'm okay with that.
So then we have 12 eggs, got these from Aldi. It also called for 4 tablespoons of butter, but I already had that.
I don't really eat feta, but ... it called for 16 ounces of it. So, I had to get four of these. Yeah. If this isn't like
... If this isn't the best cheese I've ever had in my life, I'm gonna be kind of mad, just to be honest.
Got this entire thing just for 2 tablespoons of it. This is shredded Parmesan. And then they also called for
8 ounces of mozzarella, which I have a bunch of shredded mozzarella in my fridge, so
so I'm going to be using that. Also on the list was a cup of olive oil. I couldn't remember how much I had left, so
I grabbed another little bottle just in case. Then I was supposed to get one tablespoon of red wine vinegar.
Which Wal-Mart was completely out of and Aldi didn't even seem like they even stocked it. I couldn't tell.
But Wal-Mart was, like, wiped of it. So, it looked like online that you could substitute balsamic and a few
other things for it, so I went for some balsamic vinegar because I know that I like balsamic vinegar.
So, I mean, just two tablespoons, it should be fine. Hopefully. 2 tablespoons of tomato paste. This one's
from Aldi. So, I bought this entire thing for 2 tablespoons of almonds. But it did look like their might be another
use for almonds ... later on in the book. And, I don't know, it seems healthy, so. A 15 ounce can of
chickpeas, which apparently are also called garbanzo beans. Got these from Aldi. They want ground cumin,
already have that. Then mustard powder, which Wal-Mart was out of and Aldi did not appear to be stocking.
Which was extremely annoying. Looked this one up online, and it appears that you can use mustard ...
a certain amount of mustard in replacement for it. But I've noticed that with yellow mustard, it also has
turmeric and paprika, which is also called for. So, I have a funny feeling that this probably isn't gonna turn
out how it should, but let's just hope for the best. So, I got some really cheap yellow mustard at Wal-Mart.
Because... I was ... I couldn't anymore. So. Smoked paprika, because I have paprika, but something
about smoked paprika, I've got a lot of recipes that ask for smoked preferably. So, I figured, just might as well
get that kind. Parsley flakes, I already have in my cabinet. Managed to find some ground turmeric.
Then they asked for salt, but preferably Himalayan, so I finally just got the stinkin' ground, ground, grinder
thing, whatever. A half cup of marinara sauce. Now, they're pretty specific about looking for something that
doesn't have added sugars, and it looks like this one doesn't have any, so I'm pretty excited about that.
And, even thought it was organic, it was pretty much cheaper than the other marinara sauce at Aldi,
so I was pretty excited to find this. And then the last thing on the shopping list was black pepper. Again,
I already have that, I'm not gonna worry about getting it freshly ground. Now, here's a few things that I did buy
because it seemed like I might need them. This lovely lemon squeezer, which I see them use so much on their
channel that I finally decided to just go and buy one and see if it's worth the hype. And then this metal mesh sieve or strainer.
Whatever you wanna call it. It was specifically requested on there, so I went and bought one.
Now, for each of these days, I calculated the amount of calories that were in the plan, and it looks like
I have about 300 calories left over for each of the days. It varies a little bit on each day. So, for me, personally,
I have about 300 calories left for snacks and for just junk things that I want. So, I decided to go ahead and pick
up some caramel rice snack things that are pretty low in calories per serving. As well as this sea salt already
popped popcorn. I'm just kind of a fan of these sorts of things. Also, pretty low in calories. Yes, they have carbs.
No, I don't care. And then hopefully, I'll be able to squeeze in, like, a Sprite or something for dinner,
because I just want something with sugar in it. Or, like, one of the pieces of candy that I still have left over
from Christmas and New Year's. So, that was the haul. And here's the meal prep!
So, welcome to the meal prep portion of the video. It's also going to be extreme meal prep because, as you
might have noticed, I don't have glasses on. Because yesterday, I was a genius, and ... accidentally dropped
them. So, they are now split in half, and, so... yeah. I can't hardly see anything. ... The good new is that I am near-
sighted, so all I have to do is bring things really close to my face and we'll be fine. So, hope you enjoy this.
They have, like, a whole action plan thing that I'm going to be trying to follow. So, it kind of gives you all the steps
for how to do this, which is really cool. After I finish this little intro for this segment, I'm actually going to put a
timer on to see how long it takes me to do this meal prep. Now, to be fair, I'm not, like, a professional
chef. I'm not super fast at stuff in general. So, it might take me longer than it might take you, or someone who's,
like, better at doing whole kitchen stuff. And also take into account that I'll probably be, like, moving my camera
around to get a few shots so you can enjoy the lovely meal prep process with me. Let's get into this.
The first step is to pre-heat the oven, which I have already done, to 400 degrees. We're going to be
greasing a 12-hole muffin pan and preparing the egg muffins first. So, here we go.
[music]
Okay, so for the eggs in this particular pan, I'm just doing 4 ounces of feta cheese. Even though it called for 8.
... I'm about to find out if the egg mix actually gets in here, but ... it just said to put some feta cheese
in here, ... so, this is how much I put in. We'll try.
[music]
Okay, so now while those are baking, it tells me to go ahead and return to the prep day action plan.
And it's going to tell me to wash and prepare the ingredients for the ... cauliflower rice. ... Looks like
half medium onion, diced, put in a bowl. And the head of cauliflower placed in the bowl of the food processor.
Let's see how this goes.
[music]
Look! It's- eh. No!!
I don't know what I'm doing.
Alright, guys, So, basically, what happened was, I became my own food processor.
... I'm not sure that this is necessarily a food processor in the first place, but it was, like, the closest thing I had.
Soo... basically, ... buy the cauliflower rice. The kind that's, like, already riced for you. Just do that.
Or, if you actually know what you're doing and have used a food processor, and have an actual thing
called a food processor, and know what you're doing, then go ahead by all means. But I think it's been about
20 minutes I've been working on this, so I'm just going a little bit insane.
[music]
So, we just finished the riced cauliflower thing and it's sitting over there to cool. So, right now, we're gonna try
to make this quick pesto.
[music]
Kay, so we removed the shrimp and we are currently adding spinach.
We'll see how well that goes, 'cause I have to separate it. So, here is the removed shrimp. And now it is
sauce in there.
[music]
Okay, so it is now the 2 1/2 hour mark, a little bit over that. Your girl is tired. I am just not about this
right now. ... I have put the feta egg muffin things and the shrimp scampi with the cauliflower rice
up in the fridge in their meal prep containers. ... And in between it, they had me do the spiralizing of the
zucchini. ... Cutting up an onion, yay. And also cutting up this lovely red bell pepper.
And they also wanted me to mince some garlic, but we all know that I already, I cheated that one out.
Because. I'm so done cutting stuff up! I really don't want to have to do the meat part. I hate it. I don't know
why. I just really hate cutting meat. It's so annoying! Anyway. That's where I am right now. I will say, it is
definitely meal prep DAY. And I'm really hoping that I finish in time to do what else I'm supposed to do.
I also ... drained and rinsed the - ew. That was smart. Whatever. Drained and rinsed the garbanzo beans.
Chickpeas. Whatever you wanna call them. So, here we go. We're gonna make the zucchini noodles and the
chicken parmesan part.
[music]
Okay, so I'm finally done. That took me, I don't know if you can see it... 4 hours, 28 minutes, and 48 seconds.
So, if you're actually prepared, ... I would say you probably would only take, maybe, 4 hours. 'Cause,
between having to find some stuff and having to move my camera around, I'd say maybe that took thirty
minutes, I don't know. But, yeah. ... I'm just glad it's over. Now, I gotta leave because otherwise I'm gonna be
late. I think I'm most excited about the shrimp scampi. ... I know that I like the chicken parm because I've already
tried it before. And I actually am kind of looking forward to this beef thing. And I did taste some of the feta cheese
and it's kind of like having cheese that tastes kind of like sour cream. So, I don't know. Hopefully, the egg
things taste good, because I'm gonna have them every single morning. I guess now you can see what happens.
Okay, so I have the eggs I just reheated in the microwave. I had to split them in have because they
weren't wanting to heat properly. And we're gonna find out if they're any good. Here we go.
That's actually pretty good.
It's not the best thing I've had in my life,
but it's a lot better than it smells. So, I'm gonna be having this for six days. Yay. Just finished heating
up the chicken parm for today. Nala's trying to steal my chicken parm. Quality content.
It's good. Okay, so I'm in middle of meal prepping at my mom's house. ... For the next coming week. But I have my
shrimp scampi thing that took forever to make, that I'm really excited about. So, I'm gonna try it.
It's very good.
You can taste the pesto and, like, the garlic butter and the lemon and it's fantastic.
So, today is day two of the Cut the Carbs ... week meal plan thingamajig. ... I have a pretty bad headache right
now. I don't know if it's from the weather, from sleeping, ... going to bed really late, or the fact that I have had
barely any sugar and barely any carbs or because I had recently been having a little bit more caffeine after
having not been on caffeine for quite awhile. ... I started drinking a little bit, so. I don't know, but I have a headache and it is not fun.
... Again, for breakfast, we have our egg feta muffin things. And ... I will say, freezing things - I have to be
quiet because my husband's sleeping. He just changed shifts, but. ... When you freeze food like this, it
will kind of, when you microwave it, come out a little bit watery. ... So, if you're not like me and you're better
at managing your fridge, ... I would suggest doing, like, part of it, keeping it in the fridge, and then putting part of
it in the freezer that would go bad. If it would go bad, I'm not really sure. But I know that I'm really bad at, like,
keeping up with that stuff, so I just threw it all in the freezer and I'm just bringing out, like, every day to, kind
of, thaw a little bit before puttin it in the microwave. Okay, so, it is actually dinner time now. I was not
having a great ... morning/afternoon. As I said before, I was having a headache. I'm going to conclude that
it was a migraine because ... sensitivity to light, nausea, all that fun stuff, super intense headache, too.
... Could hardly keep my eyes open. So, I took a nap, and that helped a lot. And I also got some caffeine, so
yeah. ... I had the shrimp scampi for lunch, but I didn't have, like, all of it. I saved some of it just in case
but I don't think, I'm just gonna finish it, I don't want to right now. I don't know about having ... like, I'm following
the way that they planned it out, but I'm not sure about having meals back-to-back. So, 'cause I had the shrimp
scampi last night, and having it for lunch today just didn't sound so great. But I also felt like throwing up,
so. That might've done something to it. I will also say, I don't really, I'm not really a fan of riced cauliflower.
I think that I would rather just having cauliflower pieces so something feels more solid. ... Because it just felt
like I was eating a bunch of mush, especially when I didn't feel like keeping food down, anyway.
... But anyway, I feel a lot better than I did before. ... I'm ... I look like ... I look really gross, but, you know what? This
is me. Too bad. I am going to be roughly on calorie. I'm probably going to go over a little bit because I had a lot
of my caramel snack things because I needed something feeling solid in my stomach.
And oof, the shrimp scampi wasn't doing it. Anyway, moving on, this is going to be the first time I've tried the beef ... stuff with the arugula.
And I did see that it said to separate the arugula and the beef. I'm just really lazy.
So, it's been defrosting. ... Like, how am I supposed to get it all off of the arugula, though? Like ...
What is happening to the arugula, though?
Alright, so to be fair, if this tastes disgusting, it's probably my fault because I put in an entire can of
tomato sauce instead of what I was supposed to. I'm not excited about this after feeling gross all day.
But, here we go.
[suspenseful music over chewing]
It tastes very Mexican. Like Mexican food, and I don't like Mexican food. But, I wouldn't be surprised if
a lot of my problem is because of the entire can of tomato paste. It's not bad. It's just not, like, something
I want to eat. But I am getting hints of the balsamic and as I've said before, I like balsamic. So, it might be
worth it. I'm not sure about this wilted kale(?) though. I don't know about this. I think it's better if you, like,
just keep it in your fridge or whatever and then it's all great. Or if you're gonna eat it that day or something.
Hey guys, it is day three.
And it's actually, like, 1 o'clock. ... I don't like, I don't know. Okay, so here is our third day of eating the egg
stuff. ... I am glad that we are halfway there ... concerning that. Regardless of the fact that I haven't
eaten it yet. ... I tend to be eating my breakfast really close to my lunch. Mostly because I don't really feel
super hungry and, I don't know, just straight egg and cheese doesn't really, like, set well in my stomach.
So, I'd rather eat it close to lunch and then just make lunch feel fuller. That's just how I'm doing it right now
because ... This morning, I took a walk. I feel a lot better headache-wise but I do have, like, major sinus pain right
here.
So, it is day 4 and once again, I come to you at the time of eating these lovely ... egg muffin things. They're
not bad, it's just, it's just egg and cheese and I think that's just because of the whole low carb thing.
... I definitely prefer to have something carby with it. I guess. ... Something bready, I guess. ... And
as for yesterday, I had the chicken parm for lunch and the shrimp scampi for dinner.
I did get some more caffeinated beverage and I had some popcorn to snack on at night. I didn't quite
measure it, but I'm pretty sure I landed around ... my calorie goal. Again, this is coming off of not having
followed calories in a few months. ... But I just wanted to share that information so that this is
kind of more of an accurate experiment? I don't know. And then Justin had asked me if I was cheating
by eating my breakfast right before my lunch, and to that, I say no. ... As long as I tell you guys so you know that
that's the case because ... the idea of the meal prep meal plan thing isn't necessarily, like, you just eat these
things at these certain times. Just a general, this is what you could have for breakfast, this is what you could
have for lunch, this is what you could have for dinner. They don't dictate, like, they don't even dictate even
the amount of calories you have. ... Obviously, like,
you fit in what you want to fit in. And they suggest your ... snacks. Of course, since this is the "Cut the Carbs"
week, they would suggest non-carby ... foods. They had like cheese slices and ... almonds or something
but, as I've already informed you, I'm not doing this to cut carbs, I'm just trying out the whole idea
of following one of their meal prep meal plans. So, I'm definitely having some snacks
as carbs, of course, I already showed you those and ... also, pop, so. But I am trying to keep in the calorie goal
and I do want to update you if I lost any weight during the six days of eating this way. ... And how I feel and all
that jazz. Also, though, this is one of those TMI times, ... chew your food.
... Your bowel movements may change. But then again, I guess that's a given on most diets. I don't know. Just so
you know. Okay, bye.
Alrighty, it is day five, Friday, and I just finished taking Nala for a walk and it's almost 1 o'clock.
So, I will be eating my breakfast and my lunch back-to-back today again. Which just seems to work better for
me, I don't know. Second to last day of that for breakfast. And I'm really excited, because today
for lunch is chicken parm and then it's the beef, and then tomorrow it's beef and then chicken parm, I think.
Which means that, like, for me, those are the more filling ones, so, at least I'm going to feel more full per meal.
Hopefully, these last two days, and Sunday, I 100% plan on eating whatever I want.
Alright, we are on the last day, day six, Saturday. I am very excited that this is the last day I have to eat
these for breakfast. ... So, just so you know, yesterday I got a caffeinated beverage and ... that's where
I thought I was going to stop having things that I probably shouldn't have. Then I had some pizza crust
because if you've ever had Casey's pizza crust, it's very good. And then we were taking another walk, and
we walked by a local ice cream shop and so I kind of got a scoop of ice cream there. So, I am pretty sure I went
a little bit over calories that I set but I did eat all of my food except for the chicken parm, there were some really
mm. Some weird texture thing going on there. It was like, almost squishy. So, I didn't eat all of it because
Mm-mm. I don't know why that was. I don't know if I'm just used to my chicken being, like, way overdone.
Or what. Because I'm pretty sure it was done when I cooked it. But there you go. Anyway, so
I'm excited. This is the last day and next you should see my final thoughts.
Okay, so, it is still Saturday, but I decided to go ahead and record this ending part because the only thing
I have left to eat is the chicken parm for dinner, so I think I can conclude now. Overall, the meals themselves
are pretty good. None of them were, like, gross or unbearable, but something about, like, eating them over
and over, some of them back-to-back over the week kind of made them, like, less enjoyable.
That was, oo, definitely true for the feta and egg muffins. Just ... mm. Mm-mm. By this morning, I did not
want to eat another one of those. And as a disclaimer, I did just come off of being able to eat, like, literally
whatever I wanted and however much of whatever I wanted. So, part of my angst, I guess, is probably
coming from that. So, did it make my life easier? Well, yeah, I didn't have to really think about breakfast,
lunch, or dinner for six entire days. However, the four and a half hours of meal prep for this week
was kind of grueling, honestly. Especially by myself. The back of their book suggests that it only takes two hours.
On that, I'm gonna say, not so much. Unless if people are all just faster than me at making this.
Was it worth the money? So, now I'm about to go into a pretty big breakdown on this. As I showed you in the
haul video, I did buy some things that I needed that weren't necessarily food and I also bought some snacks
that were outside of the meal prep. So, the total on both of my receipts from the stores that I went totaled to
$112.27. While that number seems pretty high, let's look into the calculations of what actually went into each
meal that I have prepared. Now, these, I'm just going to read off to you because I have the actual, exact numbers
from my estimations going through every ingredient and how much of things I got and all that stuff. So, here's
what I have. The feta cheese egg muffin was about 69 cents per serving. The shrimp scampi with the cauliflower rice and the pesto
was about about $5.41 per serving. The chicken parm with zoodles was about $1.69 per serving. And the spiced beef with chickpeas and arugula
was about $3.07 per serving. According to statistics broken down by Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar,
the average American spends about $7.64 on food per day. Let's see how our meal prep stood up to these statistics.
Day 1's meal plan brought us to $7.79. Day 2 was $9.17. Day 3 was also $7.79. Day 4 was another $9.17.
And day 5 and 6 were both $5.45 each. That gives us a grand total of about $44.82 for six days.
Which averages out to $7.47 per day, which is slightly below the average American's food cost per day. And, of
course, in addition, this is going to be all healthy foods and not just easy, cheap, junk. Also, though, this
does not include snacks and drinks, etc. It might not seem like a big difference, but according to
a study in 2015 the average American actually spends $20 a week on eating lunch out, and then you
add another $33 from either doing take-out or just eating from home, that's $55 a week just on lunch.
And that averages out to about $7.57 for one meal every single day. Now, clearly, these two sources
don't seem to agree with each other all that much, but either way, we can see that the meal prep gives
us either average or below average meal costs and it cuts out six days of eating out.
So, in the end, price-wise, I do think it is worth it. So, what about weight? A lot of people can follow
this, you know, just wanting to have healthy meals and just have things prepared for them, so they can
make better choices, I, however, am on a weight loss journey, as you know. So, I am interested in this aspect.
So, during this week, I tried to stick to, you know, obviously, eating all of these meals and then only
going over these, like, in snacks and drinks to hit a 1,770 calorie goal per day. So, I have been stepping on the
scale a little bit this week to just kind of look and peek at what might be happening. And it did appear that I was
losing. Now, obviously, today's still Saturday, so it wouldn't really be accurate to try to give you a weight
today, so tomorrow morning, Sunday morning, I'm going to weigh in and I will insert the amount of pounds
or whatever I have lost here: 5lbs.
So, overall, I think that meal prep is worth it. Now, for this particular plan, in this book, I think that
all of the meals were tasty, I just think that the frequency in eating them was a bit much and kind of started to
contribute to me not really enjoying them as much as I could. However, again, if I were more used to eating
more healthier foods, I might not feel so much like this. It is a variety of different foods ... You're just swapping
out three different ... lunch, dinners, and then having the same breakfast. Having the same breakfast when it's just
egg and cheese wasn't that great. But I will say that it helped to have the shopping list that they already had
put together. It helped so much when going to the store and, kind of, just needing to look through my ... pantry
and my fridge to see what I already have and stuff like that. It was definitely ended up being more affordable
and, again, I know that the people who make this definitely are interested in things being healthy
so, that's a major plus as well. If you don't want to follow their suggested meal schedule, you could always just
throw in a couple meals that you would like to kind of break up the monotony and then just use
those as having meals in your freezer for whenever you need them. I hope that you enjoyed this video. I know
it was a pretty long one, so if you made it this far, thank you so much. I just wanted to kind of include
the entire process of going through this so that you can also relate and maybe just enjoy watching me struggle.
I don't know. ... If you did enjoy it, go ahead and give it a thumbs up and let me know your thoughts in the comments
below and let me know if you would be interested in seeing more videos like this one. Also, you can hit the
subscribe button and the notification bell if you'd like to receive notifications when I upload. I upload every
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I hope you're having a wonderful week, and see me in my next video. Bye!
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